The present invention relates to a mushroom flavor and more particularly to the preparation of a natural mushroom flavorant composition for imparting mushroom flavor to foodstuffs.
A characteristic and major volatile flavoring component of many mushroom species has been identified as being provided by 1-octen-3-ol which has been characterized as "mushroom alcohol", as referred to by B.O. de Lumen, et al., Journal of Food Science, 43:698-702, 708 (1978). That disclosure indicates that linoleic acid is a precursor for 1-octen-3-ol and that 1-octen-3-one recovered from mushrooms can be reduced rapidly to 1-octen-3-ol.
Wurzenburger, et al., Biochimica et Biophysica Acta., 794:25-30 (1984), describe a photosensitized oxidation of linoleic acid in benzene into hydroperoxide isomers of linoleic acid and formation of 1-octen-3-ol catalysed by a protein fraction isolated from an extract of the mushroom Psalliota bispora. Wurzenburger, et al., Biochimica et Biophysica Acta. 795:163-165 (1984), describe incubation of a mushroom protein fraction containing hydroperoxide lyase activity with 10-hydroperoxy-trans-8,cis-octadecadienoic acid ("10-HPOD"). The protein fraction was also incubated with linoleic acid. Each reaction forms 1-octen-3-ol, but it also is disclosed that the hydroperoxide lyase cleaves the "S" enantiomer of 10-HPOD which has been photo-oxidized to provide a much higher percentage of the "R" enantiomer of 1-octen-3-ol.
Tressl, et al., Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry 30:89-93 (1982), describe experiments with mushrooms homogenized in a phosphate buffer with added linoleic acid and report that the concentration of 1-octen-3-ol, as determined by analytical procedures, was increased "considerably." Experiments with mushrooms homogenized in a phosphate buffer with potassium linoleate also were performed, but there is no report of the presence of 1-octen-3-ol in the compounds obtained.